England last hosted the World Cup finals 52 years ago. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

It was a story not dissimilar to the ­familiar narrative on the pitch – an expensively assembled World Cup campaign that began with high hopes and ended in ­ignominious defeat and bitter ­recrimination. The failure of England's bid to host the 2006 World Cup left those involved vowing that future bids must learn the painful lessons.

But with Fifa officials due to begin ­tearing open the letters of intent that will kick-start the race for 2018 on Monday and the English bid organisation's chief executive, Andy Anson, due to host a press conference next week to officially unveil it, some of those close to the process are starting to voice fears that history could repeat itself.

In theory, England's bid has everything going for it. The World Cup is well placed to return to Europe after South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014. It will be 52 long years since 1966, it has strong government support and is well funded (to the tune of £15m). It will tick all the boxes in terms of stadiums, infrastructure and ­commercial considerations. And, if the bid team can tap into it without tipping into arrogance, there is a rich seam of romance to be mined. But already, cracks are starting to appear as strong rivals line up.

Critics say the preponderance of ­Westminster figures on the board – the Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney, the former minister for international development Baroness Amos, the sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe and his predecessor Richard Caborn, who does not have a vote but sits as the "prime minister's ambassador" – has left less room for those who know how to best negotiate the Fifa corridors of power where the campaign will be won and lost.

Geoff Thompson, the British representative on the Fifa executive board and a key figure in global football politics, only has an ambassadorial role as one of nine vice-presidents, alongside the likes of the England manager Fabio Capello and David Beckham. On his appointment Anson said that avoiding the arrogance that had hobbled previous bids and building bridges with the Premier League would be priorities. At this week's board meeting, the consensus was that there is a long way to go.

The Premier League chairman David Richards was not offered a place on the main board, although the Manchester United chief executive David Gill does sit on it. The ­Premier League spectacularly fell out with the FA chairman, Lord Triesman, who also chairs the bid board, last year when he made a damning speech about the "debt mountains" in English football. The schism between the two organisations has yet to heal and the perception that he has sidelined the ­Premier League in the 2018 structure has not helped matters.

For all the work done by the FA's international development programme in Asia, Africa and South America, the Premier League remains ­English football's main calling card outside Europe. Mending the relationship will be one of Anson's key tasks. In doing so, the former ATP chief executive will attempt to position the 2018 bid as distinct from the FA – not easy when Triesman is leading it, its chief operating officer Simon Johnson had the same job at the FA and Jane Bateman, its well-regarded former director of international development, will play a key role.

Triesman's dual role was not on the agenda at a board meeting on Tuesday and nor was it raised. And he will point out that every other bidding vehicle is headed by its ­association chairman and argue that England would be at a disadvantage if that were not the case. But some of those on the board are still said to harbour ­reservations about whether he will be able combine both jobs.

The board is being urged to learn the lessons of London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympics and appointed Sir Keith Mills, a key architect, as a non-executive director. In its letter opening the bidding process, Fifa said it was "determined that this overwhelming ability to reach out to the world should benefit the game of football itself and society in general, and therefore asks that candidates make sure that this power is used in order to achieve positive change".

Triesman and Anson will have to come up with a narrative at an early stage, explaining what England could do for football around the world. The final "bid book" is due in by May next year. While building a public and political case is important, the campaign boils down to influencing the 24 members of the Fifa executive committee. "Each member should be the subject of a specific campaign designed to deliver his individual vote. There should, in effect, be 24 different bid campaigns," recommended a report commissioned by the FA following its decision to bid.

One senior figure in the sports world said there were three urgent priorities: "To get the domestic football politics ­better aligned, to rebuild key relationships with Richards, Thompson and the Premier League in general and to develop a really strong focus for the international campaign." Some believe that a Seb Coe figure must be found around which a political and sporting consensus can be built. ­Others consider that to be a red herring, believing Coe, who as chairman of the Fifa ethics committee must stay neutral, to be a one-off. It is likely that other big names, including 1966 World Cup winners, will come in as momentum gathers.

Those close to the bid point out that the executives that will drive it have barely got their feet under the desk. They include Ian Riley, the director of the technical bid who performed a similar role for South Africa, and David Magliano, the commercial and marketing director who did the same job for London 2012. And they argue that just because the likes of Sir Martin Sorrell, a non-executive member of the main board, and Leahy may not be personally known to Fifa committee members, their huge business acumen and contacts will be put to work in other ways.

They hope once the bid is launched, political infighting and squabbles over expenses will recede. But senior figures in the sports world believe that if the ­foundations are not strengthened now it will leave England's bid on bumpy ground. With strong European competition from Spain and Portugal's joint bid and Russia, European votes could end up split; Uefa's president Michel Platini, meanwhile, will have little choice but to abstain. When the Fifa executive cast their votes in ­December 2010, the first to reach 13 will win.

There is another cloud on the horizon. The bid was conceived in a sunnier economic climate as part of Gordon Brown's vision for a "golden decade" of British sporting events, that would also encompass the Olympics, the rugby and cricket World Cups and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow but will now be delivered against the backdrop of the worst recession in ­decades. Meanwhile, opposition MPs are exercised by the extent to which they believe Labour has tried to claim ­ownership. Sutcliffe, as well as Caborn, will likely be replaced if the Tories win power. But the shadow sports minister Hugh Robertson said he believed it had already become a political football. "The two great lessons to be learned from London 2012 are that sport, not government, should lead the bid and that it must attract cross-party support," he said. "So far, this bid appears to have achieved ­neither of them. By no means is it too late to correct this but they have got to get the structure right."

All involved insist they can put domestic squabbles to one side and unite for the good of the bid. It is ­understood renewed overtures will be made to ­Richards and the Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore to get them onside. Triesman will hope the presence of Gill and his Chelsea counterpart Peter Kenyon, in a vice-president role, will help.

In this race, England are to the rest of the field what Paris was to London in 2005. The perception that "It's England's to lose" is one that Anson's team are working hard to counter. As history has proved, being an early favourite is not always a good thing - far better to sprint clear in the closing stages. Like a US presidential race, successful campaigns rely on "MO". Like the ultimately triumphant 2012 bid, Anson's task will be to unite warring domestic tribes around a campaign that is at once powerful enough to inspire the nation, imaginative enough to stand out and flexible enough to sway those that will ultimately decide its fate.

Failure in 2006: Bid that was doomed from the start

The campaign to bring the World Cup to England in 2006 was launched on the back of the euphoria and success of Euro 96. But it was immediately hobbled by German claims that the Football Association had reneged on a "gentlemen's agreement" to back England's European Championship bid in return for a clear run at the 2006 World Cup. Despite investing £10m of FA and public funds, and enlisting the help of Sir Geoff Hurst and Sir Bobby Charlton to criss-cross the globe in ambassadorial roles, the campaign was unable to shake Uefa's belief that the agreement existed.

Some commentators believed the concentration on England's place as the rightful host because it was "the home of football" was also overplayed and risked confirming prejudices about the arrogance of the English game. It also suffered due to a lack of British representation on the main Uefa and Fifa boards. Hooliganism in Charleroi and Brussels during Euro 2000, just before the crucial vote, did not help England's chances either. And as it turned out the new Wembley, also a key part of the bid, would not have been finished. A later Commons select committee report said that the bid was innately flawed because it was unable to win the support of European committee members due to the "gentlemen's agreement" farrago. In his recent book, the former FA executive director David Davies, who also revealed that the FA was apparently offered votes for cash during the bidding process, said: "The failure of England's bid was more cock-up than conspiracy – and it was a very expensive cock-up ... England should never have bid for 2006."

Owen Gibson

The other nine bids for 2018

RussiaPros Wealth from natural resources will bolster the bidCon 11 time zones will cause logistical headaches. Political instability

Spain & PortugalPros Almost guaranteed to bank South America's three votesCon Conflict within Uefa will split the confederation's eight votes

Holland & BelgiumPros Experience hosting Euro 2000Con Will struggle for support in the Fifa executive committee

AustraliaPros Track record in hosting major tournaments and a billionaire backerCon The time difference with lucrative TV market in Europe

IndonesiaPros Population of 235m in southeast Asia, an expanding football marketCon Political and economic instability, inadequate infrastructure, frequent flooding, fears of terrorist attacks

USAPros Top-class infrastructure, stadiums and transport links and would boost ailing MLSCon Put on dull tournament in 1994 and another Americas host, Brazil, will stage the 2014 tournament

ChinaPros Success of Beijing Olympics and an untapped football marketCon Multi-venue tournament would test transport links